Following Le'Veon Bell's franchise tag, which Steelers could be cut, restructured?

The Steelers and Le'Veon Bell failing to come to a multi-year contract agreement before the NFL franchise tag deadline will have ripple effects across Pittsburgh's roster.

While the club was long set for a crunched salary cap situation regardless, Bell's tagging means Pittsburgh will have to clear about $9.4 million of space before the league year and free agency opens on March 14. Veteran players will either have their contracts effectively shredded or restructured to make room for carrying Bell while he and the team have until July 16 to work out a multi-year deal.

Such an agreement would likely light his 2018 cap hit, but Bell told ESPN he's not expecting a deal done in the next week, which leaves the following players' contracts up rearrangement or cancellation:

Prospectus: Mitchell hardly ever seemed fully healthy last season, but that only gets him so far into 2018. The middle ground between cutting and fully keeping Mitchell's current deal seems most likely. Pittsburgh can ask Mitchell to take a pay cut on what would be the final year of his contract anyway with the promise of his last best bet to win a Super Bowl as – at absolute worst – a veteran backup. As slow as Mitchell was to the sideline at times last season, it's a tall task to put a rookie safety in the situations Mitchell played in 2017.